It was now almost dark. The guests would not be coming for half an hour yet. It was only fifteen minutes’ walk over the hill to the Cove. Hastily Rachel shrouded herself in her new raincoat, and drew a dark, protecting hood over her gay head. She opened the door and slipped noiselessly downstairs. Mrs. Spencer and her assistants were all busy in the back part of the house. In a moment Rachel was out in the dewy garden. She would go straight over the fields. Nobody would see her.
It was quite dark when she reached the Cove. In the crystal cup of the sky over her the stars were blinking. Flying flakes of foam were scurrying over the sand like elfin things. A soft little wind was crooning about the eaves of the little gray house where David Spencer was sitting, alone in the twilight, his violin on his knee. He had been trying to play, but could not. His heart yearned after his daughter — yes, and after a long-estranged bride of his youth. His love of the sea was sated forever; his love for wife and child still cried for its own under all his old anger and stubbornness.
The door opened suddenly and the very Rachel of whom he was dreaming came suddenly in, flinging off her wraps and standing forth in her young beauty and bridal adornments, a splendid creature, almost lighting up the gloom with her radiance.
“Father,” she cried, brokenly, and her father’s eager arms closed around her.
Back in the house she had left, the guests were coming to the wedding. There were jests and laughter and friendly greeting. The bridegroom came, too, a slim, dark-eyed lad who tiptoed bashfully upstairs to the spare room, from which he presently emerged to confront Mrs. Spencer on the landing.
“I want to see Rachel before we go down,” he said, blushing.
Mrs. Spencer deposited a wedding present of linen on the table which was already laden with gifts, opening the door of Rachel’s room, and called her. There was no reply; the room was dark and still. In sudden alarm, Isabella Spencer snatched the lamp from the hall table and held it up. The little white room was empty. No blushing, white-clad bride tenanted it. But David Spencer’s letter was lying on the stand. She caught it up and read it.
“Rachel is gone,” she gasped. A flash of intuition had revealed to her where and why the girl had gone.
“Gone!” echoed Frank, his face blanching. His pallid dismay recalled Mrs. Spencer to herself. She gave a bitter, ugly little laugh.
“Oh, you needn’t look so scared, Frank. She hasn’t run away from you. Hush; come in here — shut the door. Nobody must know of this. Nice gossip it would make! That little fool has gone to the Cove to see her — her father. I know she has. It’s just like what she would do. He sent her those presents — look — and this letter. Read it. She has gone to coax him to come and see her married. She was crazy about it. And the minister is here and it is half-past seven. She’ll ruin her dress and shoes in the dust and dew. And what if some one has seen her! Was there ever such a little fool?”
Frank’s presence of mind had returned to him. He knew all about
Rachel and her father. She had told him everything.
“I’ll go after her,” he said gently. “Get me my hat and coat.
I’ll slip down the back stairs and over to the Cove.”
“You must get out of the pantry window, then,” said Mrs. Spencer firmly, mingling comedy and tragedy after her characteristic fashion. “The kitchen is full of women. I won’t have this known and talked about if it can possibly be helped.”
The bridegroom, wise beyond his years in the knowledge that it was well to yield to women in little things, crawled obediently out of the pantry window and darted through the birch wood. Mrs. Spencer had stood quakingly on guard until he had disappeared.
So Rachel had gone to her father! Like had broken the fetters of years and fled to like.
“It isn’t much use fighting against nature, I guess,” she thought grimly. “I’m beat. He must have thought something of her, after all, when he sent her that teapot and letter. And what does he mean about the ‘day they had such a good time’? Well, it just means that she’s been to see him before, sometime, I suppose, and kept me in ignorance of it all.”
Mrs. Spencer shut down the pantry window with a vicious thud.
“If only she’ll come quietly back with Frank in time to prevent gossip I’ll forgive her,” she said, as she turned to the kitchen.
Rachel was sitting on her father’s knee, with both her white arms around his neck, when Frank came in. She sprang up, her face flushed and appealing, her eyes bright and dewy with tears. Frank thought he had never seen her look so lovely.
“Oh, Frank, is it very late? Oh, are you angry?” she exclaimed timidly.
“No, no, dear. Of course I’m not angry. But don’t you think you’d better come back now? It’s nearly eight and everybody is waiting.”
“I’ve been trying to coax father to come up and see me married,” said Rachel. “Help me, Frank.”
“You’d better come, sir,” said Frank, heartily, “I’d like it as much as Rachel would.”
David Spencer shook his head stubbornly.
“No, I can’t go to that house. I was locked out of it. Never mind me. I’ve had my happiness in this half hour with my little girl. I’d like to see her married, but it isn’t to be.”
“Yes, it is to be — it shall be,” said Rachel resolutely. “You SHALL see me married. Frank, I’m going to be married here in my father’s house! That is the right place for a girl to be married. Go back and tell the guests so, and bring them all down.”
Frank looked rather dismayed. David Spencer said deprecatingly:
“Little girl, don’t you think it would be—”
“I’m going to have my own way in this,” said Rachel, with a sort of tender finality. “Go, Frank. I’ll obey you all my life after, but you must do this for me. Try to understand,” she added beseechingly.
“Oh, I understand,” Frank reassured her. “Besides, I think you are right. But I was thinking of your mother. She won’t come.”
“Then you tell her that if she doesn’t come I shan’t be married at all,” said Rachel. She was betraying unsuspected ability to manage people. She knew that ultimatum would urge Frank to his best endeavors.
Frank, much to Mrs. Spencer’s dismay, marched boldly in at the front door upon his return. She pounced on him and whisked him out of sight into the supper room.
“Where’s Rachel? What made you come that way? Everybody saw you!”
“It makes no difference. They will all have to know, anyway. Rachel says she is going to be married from her father’s house, or not at all. I’ve come back to tell you so.”
Isabella’s face turned crimson.
“Rachel has gone crazy. I wash my hands of this affair. Do as you please. Take the guests — the supper, too, if you can carry it.”
“We’ll all come back here for supper,” said Frank, ignoring the sarcasm. “Come, Mrs. Spencer, let’s make the best of it.”
“Do you suppose that I am going to David Spencer’s house?” said
Isabella Spencer violently.
“Oh you MUST come, Mrs. Spencer,” cried poor Frank desperately. He began to fear that he would lose his bride past all finding in this maze of triple stubbornness. “Rachel says she won’t be married at all if you don’t go, too. Think what a talk it will make. You know she will keep her word.”
Isabella Spencer knew it. Amid all the conflict of anger and revolt in her soul was a strong desire not to make a worse scandal than must of necessity be made. The desire subdued and tamed her, as nothing else could have done.
“I will go, since I have to,” she said icily. “What can’t be cured must be endured. Go and tell them.”
Five minutes later the sixty wedding guests were all walking over the fields to the Cove, with the minister and the bridegroom in the front of the procession. They were too amazed even to talk about the strange happening. Isabella Spencer walked behind, fiercely alone.
They all crowded into the little room of the house at the Cove,
and a solemn hush fell over it, broken only by the purr of the sea-wind around it and the croon of the waves on the shore. David Spencer gave his daughter away; but, when the ceremony was concluded, Isabella was the first to take the girl in her arms. She clasped her and kissed her, with tears streaming down her pale face, all her nature melted in a mother’s tenderness.
“Rachel! Rachel! My child, I hope and pray that you may be happy,” she said brokenly.
In the surge of the suddenly merry crowd of well-wishers around the bride and groom, Isabella was pushed back into a shadowy corner behind a heap of sails and ropes. Looking up, she found herself crushed against David Spencer. For the first time in twenty years the eyes of husband and wife met. A strange thrill shot to Isabella’s heart; she felt herself trembling.
“Isabella.” It was David’s voice in her ear — a voice full of tenderness and pleading — the voice of the young wooer of her girlhood—”Is it too late to ask you to forgive me? I’ve been a stubborn fool — but there hasn’t been an hour in all these years that I haven’t thought about you and our baby and longed for you.”
Isabella Spencer had hated this man; yet her hate had been but a parasite growth on a nobler stem, with no abiding roots of its own. It withered under his words, and lo, there was the old love, fair and strong and beautiful as ever.
“Oh — David — I — was — all — to — blame,” she murmured brokenly.
Further words were lost on her husband’s lips.
When the hubbub of handshaking and congratulating had subsided, Isabella Spencer stepped out before the company. She looked almost girlish and bridal herself, with her flushed cheeks and bright eyes.
“Let’s go back now and have supper, and be sensible,” she said crisply. “Rachel, your father is coming, too. He is coming to STAY,” — with a defiant glance around the circle. “Come, everybody.”
They went back with laughter and raillery over the quiet autumn fields, faintly silvered now by the moon that was rising over the hills. The young bride and groom lagged behind; they were very happy, but they were not so happy, after all, as the old bride and groom who walked swiftly in front. Isabella’s hand was in her husband’s and sometimes she could not see the moonlit hills for a mist of glorified tears.
“David,” she whispered, as he helped her over the fence, “how can you ever forgive me?”
“There’s nothing to forgive,” he said. “We’re only just married.
Who ever heard of a bridegroom talking of forgiveness?
Everything is beginning over new for us, my girl.”
JANE’S BABY
Miss Rosetta Ellis, with her front hair in curl-papers, and her back hair bound with a checked apron, was out in her breezy side yard under the firs, shaking her parlor rugs, when Mr. Nathan Patterson drove in. Miss Rosetta had seen him coming down the long red hill, but she had not supposed he would be calling at that time of the morning. So she had not run. Miss Rosetta always ran if anybody called and her front hair was in curl-papers; and, though the errand of the said caller might be life or death, he or she had to wait until Miss Rosetta had taken her hair out. Everybody in Avonlea knew this, because everybody in Avonlea knew everything about everybody else.
But Mr. Patterson had wheeled into the lane so quickly and unexpectedly that Miss Rosetta had had no time to run; so, twitching off the checked apron, she stood her ground as calmly as might be under the disagreeable consciousness of curl-papers.
“Good morning, Miss Ellis,” said Mr. Patterson, so somberly that Miss Rosetta instantly felt that he was the bearer of bad news. Usually Mr. Patterson’s face was as broad and beaming as a harvest moon. Now his expression was very melancholy and his voice positively sepulchral.
“Good morning,” returned Miss Rosetta, crisply and cheerfully. She, at any rate, would not go into eclipse until she knew the reason therefor. “It is a fine day.”
“A very fine day,” assented Mr. Patterson, solemnly. “I have just come from the Wheeler place, Miss Ellis, and I regret to say—”
“Charlotte is sick!” cried Miss Rosetta, rapidly. “Charlotte has got another spell with her heart! I knew it! I’ve been expecting to hear it! Any woman that drives about the country as much as she does is liable to heart disease at any moment. I never go outside of my gate but I meet her gadding off somewhere. Goodness knows who looks after her place. I shouldn’t like to trust as much to a hired man as she does. Well, it is very kind of you, Mr. Patterson, to put yourself out to the extent of calling to tell me that Charlotte is sick, but I don’t really see why you should take so much trouble — I really don’t. It doesn’t matter to me whether Charlotte is sick or whether she isn’t. YOU know that perfectly well, Mr. Patterson, if anybody does. When Charlotte went and got married, on the sly, to that good-for-nothing Jacob Wheeler—”
“Mrs. Wheeler is quite well,” interrupted Mr. Patterson desperately. “Quite well. Nothing at all the matter with her, in fact. I only—”
“Then what do you mean by coming here and telling me she wasn’t, and frightening me half to death?” demanded Miss Rosetta, indignantly. “My own heart isn’t very strong — it runs in our family — and my doctor warned me to avoid all shocks and excitement. I don’t want to be excited, Mr. Patterson. I won’t be excited, not even if Charlotte has another spell. It’s perfectly useless for you to try to excite me, Mr. Patterson.”
“Bless the woman, I’m not trying to excite anybody!” declared Mr.
Patterson in exasperation. “I merely called to tell you—”
“To tell me WHAT?” said Miss Rosetta. “How much longer do you mean to keep me in suspense, Mr. Patterson. No doubt you have abundance of spare time, but — I — have NOT.”
“ — that your sister, Mrs. Wheeler, has had a letter from a cousin of yours, and she’s in Charlottetown. Mrs. Roberts, I think her name is—”
“Jane Roberts,” broke in Miss Rosetta. “Jane Ellis she was, before she was married. What was she writing to Charlotte about? Not that I want to know, of course. I’m not interested in Charlotte’s correspondence, goodness knows. But if Jane had anything in particular to write about she should have written to ME. I am the oldest. Charlotte had no business to get a letter from Jane Roberts without consulting me. It’s just like her underhanded ways. She got married the same way. Never said a word to me about it, but just sneaked off with that unprincipled Jacob Wheeler—”
“Mrs. Roberts is very ill. I understand,” persisted Mr. Patterson, nobly resolved to do what he had come to do, “dying, in fact, and—”
“Jane ill! Jane dying!” exclaimed Miss Rosetta. “Why, she was the healthiest girl I ever knew! But then I’ve never seen her, nor heard from her, since she got married fifteen years ago. I dare say her husband was a brute and neglected her, and she’s pined away by slow degrees. I’ve no faith in husbands. Look at Charlotte! Everybody knows how Jacob Wheeler used her. To be sure, she deserved it, but—”
“Mrs. Roberts’ husband is dead,” said Mr. Patterson. “Died about two months ago, I understand, and she has a little baby six months old, and she thought perhaps Mrs. Wheeler would take it for old times’ sake—”
“Did Charlotte ask you to call and tell me this?” demanded Miss
Rosetta eagerly.
“No; she just told me what was in the letter. She didn’t mention you; but I thought, perhaps, you ought to be told—”
“I knew it,” said Miss Rosetta in a tone of bitter assurance. “I could have told you so. Charlotte wouldn’t even let me know that Jane was ill. Charlotte would be afraid I would want to get the baby, seeing that Jane and I were such intimate friends long ago. And who has a better right to it than me, I should like to know? Ain’t I the oldest? And haven’t I had experience in bringing up babies? Charlotte needn’t think she is going to run the affairs of our family just because she happened to get married. Jacob Wheeler—”
“I must be going,” said Mr. Patterson, gathering up his reins thankfully.
“
I am much obliged to you for coming to tell me about Jane,” said Miss Rosetta, “even though you have wasted a lot of precious time getting it out. If it hadn’t been for you I suppose I should never have known it at all. As it is, I shall start for town just as soon as I can get ready.”
“You’ll have to hurry if you want to get ahead of Mrs. Wheeler,” advised Mr. Patterson. “She’s packing her trunk and going on the morning train.”
“I’ll pack a valise and go on the afternoon train,” retorted Miss
Rosetta triumphantly. “I’ll show Charlotte she isn’t running the
Ellis affairs. She married out of them into the Wheelers. She
can attend to them. Jacob Wheeler was the most—”
But Mr. Patterson had driven away. He felt that he had done his duty in the face of fearful odds, and he did not want to hear anything more about Jacob Wheeler.
Rosetta Ellis and Charlotte Wheeler had not exchanged a word for ten years. Before that time they had been devoted to each other, living together in the little Ellis cottage on the White Sands road, as they had done ever since their parents’ death. The trouble began when Jacob Wheeler had commenced to pay attention to Charlotte, the younger and prettier of two women who had both ceased to be either very young or very pretty. Rosetta had been bitterly opposed to the match from the first. She vowed she had no use for Jacob Wheeler. There were not lacking malicious people to hint that this was because the aforesaid Jacob Wheeler had selected the wrong sister upon whom to bestow his affections. Be that as it might, Miss Rosetta certainly continued to render the course of Jacob Wheeler’s true love exceedingly rough and tumultuous. The end of it was that Charlotte had gone quietly away one morning and married Jacob Wheeler without Miss Rosetta’s knowing anything about it. Miss Rosetta had never forgiven her for it, and Charlotte had never forgiven the things Rosetta had said to her when she and Jacob returned to the Ellis cottage. Since then the sisters had been avowed and open foes, the only difference being that Miss Rosetta aired her grievances publicly, in season and out of season, while Charlotte was never heard to mention Rosetta’s name. Even the death of Jacob Wheeler, five years after the marriage, had not healed the breach.
The Complete Works of L M Montgomery Page 556
